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“I just finished playing my first HoliDaze gig of the year! It’s for a company that manages several commercial office buildings. For the next 3 mornings in a row I’ll play in the lobby of one of...”
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“Sample SIPDOWN! One more down, one hundred and…um…who’s counting?….to go.
This was really nice. It is strong enough to be a morning tea, refined enough for an afternoon tea, cocoa flavored with...”
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“I made this as my morning tea today. One sip and my eyes opened wide in delighted surprise. My first thought? Wow! I was surprised by how utterly awesome it was. I was expecting a breakfast blend...”
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From Verdant Tea

We just don’t get most breakfast tea. Who wants to be hit in the face with astringency right when they wake up? We talked to a lot of people and did a lot of field tests on this one. The goal was to make a breakfast blend that was rich, strong, and satisfying enough for people to drink straight or with milk, while avoiding that bitter and dry flavor that breakfast tea can fall into. The result is a perfectly melded, and multi dimensional morning cup of tea that actually settles the stomach, but still packs enough caffeine to get you going. We reached outside the box on this, blending our Chinese black teas with a touch of roasted oolong and a touch of pu’er to round out the body.

33 Tasting Notes

I just finished playing my first HoliDaze gig of the year! It’s for a company that manages several commercial office buildings. For the next 3 mornings in a row I’ll play in the lobby of one of their buildings from 7:30 – 9:00 am. They set up a breakfast buffet so that the various tenants can fill a plate, get coffee, tea, or juice, etc. I’m rarely awake this early, so I needed plenty if tea! This was one, an interesting blend with a flavor profile guaranteed to wake up my taste buds: chocolate, caramel, cream, malty bread, earth, pepper…it’s as if verdant combined all of my favorite teas into one cup…oh wait! They did!

HoliDaze gig – my sympathies. The musicians on our praise team glaze over at this time of year. Shame on us – I know a lot of people really like carols. There is just only so much you can do (and get by with) on traditional classics. Trans Siberian Orchestra we are not. We do have a ‘We will rock you’ version of O Come Let Us Adore Him, and a pretty uptempo version of Angels From The Realms Of Glory. Then it is back into auto-pilot.

KS the only time we Ever sing anything other than Byzantine Chant is after the Liturgy on Christmas. It’s really special to sing a few old carols a capella in the candlelight. There has never been a time where I didn’t want to be there in all my 65 years.

Fixed it!
I actually enjoy playing holidaze music of all kinds, so much so that I recorded a Christmas CD a few years ago. I end up being very busy usually for the first 3 weeks of December, & this year promises to be no different (& it’s a good thing…I gotta pay for all the tea I ordered!).

I know I am in the music minority. I have no sentimental or memory attachment to most Christmas music. I was 35 when I started going to church. Musically I will take attitude over harmony any day. As for the holidays, Alvin and the Chipmunks say Christmas to me. Cantatas, choirs, etc just don’t move me in a good way. I do my best not to ruin it for others. I probably sound like the Grinch but honestly I am very traditional when it comes to Christmas. It is just that my traditions are different than the majority.

I was decorating yesterday (snow and a big cold snap is on the way with a 50 plus degree drop in temp all at once) so I set Pandora up for crooners Christmas (Bing, Perry Como etc.) and Smooth Christmas (Buble etc.), and Russian and Byzantine Chant on my TV (Commercial Free). Now when I drink my tea and read what’s happening here on my Kindle, I’ll have mood music, snow out the window and tea! Living the good life!

Sample SIPDOWN! One more down, one hundred and…um…who’s counting?….to go.

This was really nice. It is strong enough to be a morning tea, refined enough for an afternoon tea, cocoa flavored with hints of puerh rather than anything smacking you in the face. This is a great wake up tea to me and would be fantastic with bagels.

I made this as my morning tea today. One sip and my eyes opened wide in delighted surprise. My first thought? Wow! I was surprised by how utterly awesome it was. I was expecting a breakfast blend flavor, and was greeted by a rich, malty, complex flavor – way, way beyond the usual breakfast blend taste. It makes you sit up and take notice.

On second thought, this shouldn’t have surprised me – I have yet to taste a tea from Verdant that was not in a class of it’s own; the teas included in this blend are each excellent.

Problem is I gulped it down so fast, I am now at a loss now to describe it’s flavor. I will have to make another cup when I get home to savor more slowly.

Aroma-wise this has all sorts of things happening…but individually I can pick out a slight cocoa-powder type smell and I think it’s nifty!

First…I can taste the Pu-erh, then QUICKLY and BRIEFLY I can taste the Yunnan, then I can taste the Robe…the Robe seems to hang around a bit longer than the other two tastes.

As I continue to sip I can taste more natural cocoa notes. They are very nice!

I can also taste “rock” or “mineral” type oolong flavors a bit more as it starts to cool at room temp a bit.

Also after cooling at room temperature for a bit – the chocolately-cocoa-powder notes are more in the fore-front and the pu-erh seems to claim down quite a bit. It does become more malty, too! I REALLY appreciate this!

This is another morphing tea…many of you know I LOVE morphing teas. They make you think. They make you re-evaluate things.

This has a lot going on and appreciate everything this tea is and goes thru during the sip-process and that sip-process couldn’t be possible without the many people and processes behind the teas and tea blends. Thank you! Thank you for all you do! This is the sort of tea that makes you remember all of that…may we NEVER take any of that for granted!

I was drinking this at work yesterday. I didn’t like how this one was balanced, the oolong didn’t work for me. It was jumping up and down screaming “taste me, taste me” – it was fighting against rather than complimenting the other teas in this blend. I was really hoping to like this one, but sadly it’s a miss.
Thanks ifjuly for the sample.

Yes, I still have some of this left. Yes, it’s gotta be two years old. Yes, it still smells amazing in the bag, and even better steeped. The aroma reminds me mostly of Laoshan Black with rich cocoa notes and a big yummy smell that wraps you up and reads you a book while you listen to something awesome on vinyl in the background. Wait, that’s what I wish was happening.

Honestly, I was scared of this for a long time because it contains some puerh. I know and love the LB and the Yunnan and the big Red Robe, but that puerh was just scary. Now I am diving into the world of pu and trying to learn to like it – because man do I ever want to like it.

In this blend, I find it takes a backseat to the black teas. The yunnan and the LB make a tag team that dominates the pu and oolong and leaves you with delicious honey sweetened cocoa that is smooth and drinkable the whole way through. No bitterness, no astringency, and nothing but good feelings. This was nothing to fear – now I am only dissappointed that it isn’t available any longer. It works well western style, but I think it would shine with a gong fu session in my gaiwan.

The end of the sip is really developing more and more big red robe flavours. It seems to hide under the other bold teas and then when they burn out you get the oolong. Very nice! As it cools, I think I am starting to get more of the pu but I don’t remember ever trying this particular pu on it’s own so I can’t tell if it is taking over or if the melding of the other awesome teas is just turning into something bigger and better.

The pu definitely takes over as it cools and you know what? I don’t mind. It is a totally different taste experience from the start but it is good the whole way through. Extremely interesting.

I loved this one, & hoarded it for months! It was my first introduction to puer as well, & I finally drank the last of it not so long go myself, & I keep hoping Verdant will come up with another similar blend. I know they don’t have all the same teas on their shelves, but I’m sure they could create something similar, or at least similarly delicious! :D

I make something like it using the winter blend, laoshan black and a small piece of bready Puerh. (a cedar wood flavored pu wouldn’t be as good as a bakery bread tasting one). Comes close to our old favorite.

I agree- I want to bring this back! I am passing this along to David, for sure. We’ve just been waiting for the right shu pu’er and yunnan, but now that a new shu from Master Han arrived yesterday :D, I think there will definitely be an Imperial Breakfast in the works!

It’s been a while since I went for a tea blend, but the recent tasting notes on this one stirred my curiosity enough to give it a go. I asked David for a sample of this when I saw him recently, and he was happy to send me home with enough for two drinking sessions. I just brewed it up in the past hour, needing to shake off my grog from the long caffeinated work day and night of dancing that preceded my very reluctant rise from the bed this morning.

I put two and a half teaspoons of this blend in my Ruci pot and proceeded with my typical gongfu brewing routine for Chinese blacks: immediate wash, then 5-second first steep, followed by +5 seconds for each infusion following. My initial reaction, the moment the liquor passed my lips on the first steep, exactly echoed the one-sip-wow! that ssajami mentioned recently. There is a beautiful sparkling bite at the front of the tongue as soon as I take each sip. I implicate the formidable alliance of Laoshan Black, Big Red Robe and Xingyang Imperial in yielding this rich sparkle through their combined command of that quality. This is true synergy! The Yunnan Golden Buds further enrich and sweeten the deal, making for a very luxurious texture and flavor profile.

If my description of the above synergy is framed in the language of organized crime, it’s because drinking this blend has made me a bit shifty-eyed, as though it were too good to be legal. I have tasted each of the teas in this blend separately, and they are all great and powerful teas, but I wasn’t expecting (really… could not imagine) the indomitable strength that would come of their conspiring together. I imagine this blend is like an exacting and perfectly organized plot to execute a jewel heist of historic proportions… and all of its culprits managed to capture their loot and escape without a hitch.

This blend is super, and upon trying it I have new respect for David’s taste… which is something I thought I already had the highest respect possible for. What an excellent surprise this was! I will definitely be buying a supply of this blend, and exploring more of the Alchemy offerings.

Love your write up of this wonderful tea! The synergy in this tea is amazing. The cha qi in this tea really knocks my socks off. I love the organized crime angle… I found it nearly “sinful” it was so unexpectedly good.
When I first saw the blend described, I thought of that line in “Ghostbusters” where the heros had to remember not to “cross the streams” or suffer annihilation. These teas create streams that join up to make for an invigorating and satisfying brew.

Haha~! Great comments, everyone. Thanks for the appreciation. When writing some of these notes I just try to amuse myself, and it’s nice to know that others sometimes enjoy these little language games of mine.

@Spoonvonstup – So here’s my pitch… A commission of obscure underworld origin falls upon a small outfit of exiled Scandanavian hackers to hatch a plot against impossible odds to infiltrate the PRC Bank of National Treasures and steal the last legal harvest from the Da Hong Pao mother bushes. Suffering extreme adversity, including partial capture and loss of life, in the course of this operation, some members of the group succeed in escaping with their loot… BUT, needing resources to recover their imprisoned comrades, our protagonists try to collect on their commission, only to find that all trace and record of it’s source has vanished. The obscure director of their heist may just as well have never existed… Meanwhile, CRP secret services and Interpol are quickly closing in, as the hackers desperately hunt for the phantom author of their contract… until one of them stumbles upon the first sure lead, revealing that the man who ordered this heist has been dead for decades! And now, the hackers begin to realize that they have not only to elude the hunt of international agents, but as well a far more dangerous hunter within them: Madness.

I wish I had a copy to share. I purchased mine and thought it was a hoot… It was passed around among my friends for about a year and now I have no idea who has it… but is worthwhile to add to your collection! :)

I’m beginning to invision the Alchemist at Verdant like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, fitted with a pointed hat and waving a rather long wand (or spoon in this case) while thunderous rounds of Mussorgskys Night on Bald Mountain play in the background. (Naturally there has to be thundering and lightening outside the windows too!) Right?

I’ve enjoyed 4 or 5 Verdant blends thus far and what strikes me is the amount of subtilty and restraint that other alchemists (blenders) can’t do. Most go too far. Do they assume that WE the public demand gaudy, overly flavored in-your-face tea as though we’re so used to tea as a Mcdonalds Menu Item, that we can’t taste the difference! Well hey buddy no! There are tea companies out there (Verdant being one I know of and there are others I’m sure) that has respect for restraint and finesse! WE DO have some tea sense! Thank you! Preach on!

Ok I like this blend…good bye.
(Just kidding)

I’m used to big malty or yammy tea in the morning. Assam, Laoshan Black. A great Pu-erh!
When I read that this was more mellow with good caffeine and low acid, I could see that this would be a great tea for those with tummy issues. But, would the taste still be rich enough?
The liquor at 3.5 minute steeping is a nice medium dark brown with a great brown sugar molasses scent. I fully expected the tea to taste like the smell wafting up. Instead,it was much more mellow. This was nice and juicy, fresh and sparkling from the puerh rich underbelly. Where you would expect acid there is a hint of malt…a bit of spice that is not distincty cinnamon.
This is my morning cuppa. La Dolce Vita! Add creme it whispered! So I did this, being Continental and all that (remembering Rome) coaching out of my cup the creamy caramel smooth flavor of my tea with the added discovery of a hint of saltiness and Scots shortbread. A bonnie tea!

I must confess that without sweetening, this is mighty fine. You could pair this with any breakfast because the blend is hearty.

I think David said that with the blends they’re trying to enhance natural notes that already come out in some of the teas. I think they also may not use ‘flavouring’, which makes everything subtler (which I think is a good thing, because the tea bases are so fabulous already!)

How am I supposed to drink other breakfast blends after this? The cream and the honeyed caramel notes are delivered as promised. Yet another tea from Verdant that I now wish I had more than a sample of.

Bonnie’s note mentions that this is low in acid? Sounds like a good tea for me! :)

I was a little fuzzy headed this morning after a night of tossing and turning, so instead of having my morning green tea I thought I would start the day with a kick. Breakfast Tea sounded like what I needed, but my tin of Scottish Blend was empty. Hmm, good opportunity to try the Verdant Tea Imperial Breakfast for the first time.

The aroma of the dry leaves, fresh from the bag, are truly intoxicating. Mostly Laoshan Northern Black, with a touch of the big leaves of Yunnan and a bare hint of oolong. After 4 minutes of steeping, the color of the tea is not very dark, but the aroma is amazing and I can’t wait any longer.

The first taste is the wonderful fruity cocoa flavor of the Northern Black and an aftertaste of the golden Yunnan. Smooooth! The pu’erh and oolong are playing a game of tag on the back of my tongue bringing a full body and woodsy roundness. My mind is searching for some kind of jolt that usually comes with Breakfast Blends, but instead there is just the slow, steady unfolding of warm flavors. Very nice! It is like awakening from a deep slumber from the sounds of the forest or pleasant music instead of the jarring sound of an alarm clock.

I did my meditation, prepared for the day, and now am enjoying another cup of this beautiful tea. The second steeping brings forth new adventures from the blend of teas. I think this is so much more than just for breakfast… I can drink this all day long. :)